Mockingbird
by ncfan
Summary: Kushina loves her little boy. /And if that mockingbird don't sing, Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring./


If you want me to write about a certain character or character combination, tune in to the poll on my profile.

Disclaimer: I own neither Naruto nor "Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird."

* * *

Kushina loves her little boy.

The room where they've put him is always bright with summer sunlight (and that Naruto was born in October doesn't set off any warnings in her mind). The wallpaper is a bright, light blue; the bassinet has a gorgeous mobile of small animals (Kushina got rid of the little orange fox because it was glaring at her boy and swishing its nine tails, and placed the winking red toad in its spot in the middle, directly over Naruto's head).

Naruto is the sweetest, most cheerful baby Kushina has ever known. She can hold him to her thumping heart for hours upon hours and he doesn't fuss or cry. Come to think of it, he never cries at all. He never wants to wriggle or be away from her. He's never hungry (something that should bother Kushina but doesn't), he's never sad or angry, and he alternates between cheerful and sleepy. Naruto sleeps a lot.

And her boy is more beautiful than any other baby could be. He has a soft fuzz of warm, bright gold on the crown of his skull, and his eyes are the clearest, purest blue, blue like the ocean at daybreak, blue like the wings of a bluebird. His soft skin is the color of a freshly skinned peach, and his unmarked (Kushina once saw something black and ugly stretching across Naruto's cheeks, but she licked her thumb and rubbed it away and it hasn't dared to come back since) cheeks are round and soft and slightly pudgy.

Though she has been in that room a long time (she never leaves because she's afraid that if she leaves Naruto won't be there when she comes back and she wouldn't be able to deal with that if it did), Naruto never grows. He never gets any bigger. He just stays her darling little baby boy, his feet and hands curled, tiny toenails and fingernails like flower petals or little pink seashells, the backs of his perfect hands and his eyelids veined like a butterfly's wing.

Sometimes others come to see her. Two are a red-haired woman and a red-haired man, a very young man, who both look almost exactly like her. They smile and laugh with her, but they always seems sad, and Kushina knows that there's something not right about them being with her.

The woman is nurturing and kind, yet loud and short-tempered, and Kushina always has to tell her to leave to keep her from upsetting Naruto (In some strange dark recess of the mind, Kushina sees this woman coated with blood, her white throat stained crimson and her eyes like glassy green marbles, and that along with the woman's abrasive nature makes Kushina want her to leave), yet she's always sad when she leaves, because Kushina has a hard time remembering her face after she leaves.

The young man is buoyant and cheery, and strangely sad. On closer inspection, he's a teenager, with violet-gray eyes exactly like hers. He examines and admires Naruto, but his heart never seems to be in his words and he never stays long. (For some reason, Kushina has dreams in dark places of this boy, ripped apart like a piece of paper, his same beautiful stormy eyes closed and bleeding)

There is another who comes, who Kushina doesn't want anywhere near her or her baby.

He seems harmless enough. He is a man maybe three years older than her, handsome, beautiful, who looks just like Naruto with a slightly shaggy mane of hair like gold wheat that leaves Kushina fascinated yet repelled, with kind, gentle sea blue eyes that are beloved yet hateful.

He evokes two strong emotions in her. One is one Kushina is amazed and slightly frightened to find: love, the kind of love that brings down and raises up kingdoms, the kind of love that one would kill to have. The other is hate. She loves him yet she reviles him. He is hateful in her eyes, an object of scorn and disgust, because of something he did.

He never looks at Naruto; he always looks at _her_, cajoling, pleading, whispering, crying, and it scares her.

"Why?" she whispers, edging away from him the way a cornered deer would from a wolf. "Why did you do it to us?"

His hand will grip hers, his eyes sad and pained and regretful and sorrowful and filled with guilt. "Kushina, please…" His voice is thick with some emotion that Kushina can not identify.

It is at this moment, as always, that Kushina experiences a flash of what might have been her life.

–_The night is burning, and the fox, the one that Kushina got rid of but much, much bigger is sweeping his nine fiery tails across a village. People are screaming, a fair-haired man is standing atop a giant toad, the same one that now sits in the middle of the mobile, but again, much larger, his face grim and set, and somewhere, a red-haired woman is dying. He rushes to the woman, only to find her dead and a small baby howling. With his soul weeping and tears pouring from his eyes, he picks up the baby and begins to perform the seals…_

_Unfortunately, what Minato has _not_ noticed is that Kushina is _not_ dead. Not yet, anyway. She is weak and dying from blood loss, but she is only unconscious._

_The harsh, rising cries of her baby wake her up. In her delirious state, Kushina thinks that Minato is only holding him. But the air is crackling with a malevolent chakra. The moment she realizes what he's really doing, she starts to scream._

_"You can't! No, not him! Please, not Naruto!" All of her muscles screaming as if they are dying, Kushina laboriously pushes herself to her feet, as blood that is no longer brown or even red, blood so thick that its shade has been turned to pitch, gushes forth. She can not stand, and falls to the ground, wailing and pleading._

_Minato's eyes dawn in abject horror as he realizes that she lives still, but he is already halfway through, and he has to finish what he's started. "I'm sorry, Kushina," Minato whispers, his voice harsh with pain. "I'm _so _sorry."_

_She lives just long enough to see him finish his work._—

He regrets it, but Kushina can not forgive him. There is not enough room in her heart for that, not anymore.

He leaves, practically running from her.

The last one who comes is Kushina's favorite. This woman makes her feel safe and normal, and she never behaves as though there is something wrong.

This woman is small, smaller than Kushina at least. Her hands look small and short-fingered next to Kushina's long, slender ones. She is golden and glowing; her shoulder-length, dark gold hair swishes and glimmers as she walks. The whites of her eyes are startling next to her tanned skin, and her dark green eyes, flecked with gray like the stormy seas, like the sea that Kushina once lived by, glow. She is a kunoichi, Kushina is sure; no woman but a kunoichi could move with such feral grace. She wears a hitai-ate that Kushina can no longer identify, and her skin smells like the wind, pure and unfettered and free.

Kushina likes this one the best, because this one never raises images that frighten her.

She sits beside her on the carpet, crouched over and observing Naruto appreciatively. Sometimes when she moves to stroke Naruto's forehead, her hands miss his skin or stroke too hard, but Naruto never seems to mind.

There is a sound outside the room. Kushina's companion looks up, then turns to her and smiles. "I'll be right back."

* * *

Karura steps outside the room, feeling drained as usual and sorrowful as anyone can be. For a moment she leans against the door, staring down at her shoes, her hand braced against the side of her neck. _What a bloody mess._

Then she notices what she came out for. Minato is on the verge of tears as he always is after trying to talk to Kushina. At first, Karura had absolutely no sympathy for Minato, because in her eyes he was just like her husband (_Who should count himself lucky that he's still among the living and out of my reach_, Karura thinks viciously), a man who was willing to seal a demon inside of his child and make that child's life miserable.

But her hardened heart remained a block of ice for a short time only. Because Minato is not like her husband, he is _not_ like Sabaku no Takeo, the Yondaime Kazekage. He is kind and gentle and tormented, and he clearly regrets what he did (_Though he probably regrets it more now_).

"There's no change," she tells him dully.

"I know," Minato chokes out. "I know." He sucks in his breath shudderingly. "Do you think…Do you think she'll get any better?"

Karura slides to the floor beside him. "I don't know," she answers honestly, and Minato is strangely grateful for blunt, practical, honest Karura, who has never once lied to him about Kushina's condition. "I mean, for the first few months, I was a bit out of it too, but I never hallucinated. With any luck, she'll be back to normal in a few months."

Minato splutters, and Karura finds it almost impossible to believe that this is the late Yondaime Hokage sitting beside her, because she sees such a different side of him than those who knew him when he was alive ever did. He's the same age as her, and they relate to each other relatively well. What Karura sees is a vulnerable man, emotionally mature but fragile, and more broken in death than he ever was in life. "A few _months_?!"

Karura claps her hand over his in a rough attempt to comfort him. "Be glad. Some go years like this; some never recover at all. But thankfully, we have all eternity to try and make it better for her."

Minato sighs and closes his tearful eyes tightly. Karura is quite sure that he is broken; after all, being chewed up and then spat out by the Shinigami (apparently the Kyuubi's chakra was too much for the death god's digestive system and Minato was just along for the ride) has to have been a traumatic experience.

Karura lets out a gust of breath and starts to stand up. "Kushina'll be wanting me, and I don't like to leave her alone for too long." She smiles down at Minato, and wills herself to put force behind the words she says next. "Keep that chin up, Mr. Hokage. Everything'll be alright, you'll see."

Karura slips back into the room, and feels her hackles rise, because even in death a shinobi, especially a kunoichi, is wary of madness in any living being.

The room is cool and dark, the stark white light bulb the only source of light. The walls are painted a deep blue, almost black, and the carpet is blue gray. There are no furnishings anywhere, and Kushina sits in the middle of the room holding blankets close to her chest, her back straight as though pressed up against a solid barrier.

"Karura!" she chirps happily. "I was beginning to get worried."

Karura smiles, forcing cheer into her face, and slides down beside Kushina, slipping an arm around the younger woman's shoulders.

Kushina beams at her older friend. "Shh. He's sleeping. Isn't he beautiful, Karura?"

Karura looks down into the bundle of blankets and sees…

Absolutely nothing.

As Karura leaves (she who has only recovered from half-madness recently can not risk being around someone who is entirely mad for very long), a lullaby fills her ears.

Kushina's voice is soft and shaking as she sings; it rings in Karura's ears, reaching down to the deepest recesses like a parasitic worm. _"Hush little baby, don't say a word, Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don't sing, Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring. And if that diamond ring turns to brass, Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass…"_

_Don't worry sweetheart. I'll never leave you again._

* * *

"Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird" is a traditional lullaby, probably American because of the reference to mockingbirds, because mockingbird are native to the New World. The original author is unknown. I've always found it (and several other lullabies) to be quite creepy.


End file.
